388 EXPERIMENT STATION EECORD. 



RURAL ECONOMICS. 



Recent immigrants in agriculture, A. E. Cance (Washington: Govt., 1911, 

 pp. 75). — This is an abstract of the report of tlie Immigration Commission on 

 recent immigrants in agriculture in the United States wlilcli shows the scope, 

 method, and purpose of the inA-estigation, a general sociological and economic 

 survey of the immigrants in rural communities, the different races in agricul- 

 ture, their conditions of employment, housing conditions, standard of living, etc. 



Immigrant rural communities, A. E. Cance (Survey, 25 (1911), No. 15, 

 pp. 587-595). — The author, who was in charge of the report issued by the 

 Immigration Commission in 1010 relative to recent immigrants engaging in 

 agriculture in the United States (see above), discusses at length the history, 

 economic characteristics, social progress, and institutions of the rural immigrant 

 in the United States. 



It is pointed out that about one-fourth of all male breadwinners of foreign 

 parentage were engaged in agricultural pursuits in 1900, although a greater 

 ■part of them were of the older immigration who settled in the Middle West 

 years ago and who have now become thoroughly Americanized and have made 

 successful and prosperous farmers. In the East and South, where the foreign 

 rural groups are new. infrequent, and unsettled, they have yet to prove their 

 fitness generally for agricultural pursuits. 



It is shown that the immigrant as a farmer or permanent farm laborer gener- 

 ally becomes a real economic factor in rural pursuits, but as a seasonal agicul- 

 tural laborer — that is, one who lives in the city during the winter and works on 

 the farm for only a few months during the summer, usually in the fruit and 

 vegetable districts — he amounts to no more than a casual economic interest to 

 the community. 



The author directs most attention to the south Italians and gives illustrations 

 of where particular groups of them have settled in Louisiana, Texas, North 

 Carolina, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. Each family has pur- 

 chased a few acres of land, which, as a rule, had been deserted by Americans or 

 had never been brought under cultivation, and by reason of their specialization, 

 intensive farming, and cooperative marketing, their returns have been fairly 

 remunerative. " The hundreds of little berry farms, vineyards, or sweet potato 

 or pepper fields which make these Italian communities real oases in a waste of 

 sand and lowland, bear unmistakable testimony to the ability of the much- 

 maligned south Italian to create wealth and to make progress materially, mor- 

 ally, and politically under rural conditions." 



An important economic feature is illustrated by a cooperative marketing asso- 

 ciation at Independence, La. Whereas individual growers formerly shipped 

 their berries to commission merchants in Chicago and neighboring cities with 

 unsatisfactory and sometimes ruinous results, the berries are now sold to plat- 

 form buyers f. o. b. Independ<^nce with gratifying results. " During the spring 

 of 1910 the association sold $357,639 worth of berries for its members." 



It is found that the Hebrew is not adapted by training or tradition to become 

 a pioneer farmer, and his success is confined to those who have been farmers 

 abroad or have had successful training or experience in the United States pre- 

 vious to permanent settlement. 



Sm.all holdings (Bd. Agr. and Fisheries [London], Ann. Rpt. Proc. Small 

 Hold, atid Allot. Act [etc.'], 1910, pp. 7i).— The Board of Agriculture and Fish- 

 eries, in making its report for 1910 relative to the administration of the small 

 holdings and allotments act, shows that while it has experienced some diffi- 

 culty in the administration of the work, considerable progress has been made 

 during the past year in satisfying the demand for small holdings. 



